Watch: John Oliver slams Hotstar for blocking Disney jokes, not airing Last Week Tonight episode on Narendra Modi

Recently on Last Week Tonight, political satirist John Oliver slammed Disney-owned Indian streaming platform Hotstar for heavily editing out content from three episodes. Oliver first addressed how Hotstar had chosen to “self-censor” and not air an episode criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump’s visit. He had been quite vocal of his criticism in the episode, calling Modi “a man for whom Trump seems to have a great deal of affection,” also stating the prime minister has become “one of the most divisive figures in India”. “What’s worse is, it’s apparently not even the first time they have censored us. We’ve discovered that they’ve been quietly doing it for a while now, but not for the reason that you might expect,” says Oliver in the latest segment. He points out that an episode from 2019, where he had joked about Disney, was edited out by Hotstar in India. He adds that another segment on China’s one child policy in which he had said that Donald Duck’s penis is “shaped like a corkscrew” was also removed. “They cut out a joke about Mickey Mouse being a cocaine addict. Why would they do that? It’s hard to say. But it might be because Hotstar is owned by Disney and they seem extra sensitive to Disney references," he says, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Watch the video here

It has come to John Oliver's notice that Hotstar is censoring his show in India. https://t.co/HqwfjMfxzX

— Deepanjana (@dpanjana) March 9, 2020

Disney soon intends to launch its new streaming service Disney Plus in India via Hotstar on 29 March . The announcement was made in February by Bob Iger who said the company will rebrand the Hotstar app to Disney Plus Hotstar. Hotstar became a Disney property in 2017 as part of its acquisition of Fox Studios, which also included the entire Star India group. As of now, most of the premium Disney content is available on Hotstar app.